Are you Prepared?

On Monday October 2 my Bad Cats calendar announced “Things don’t look so good for you, I’m afraid.” How true those words were. The Las Vegas shootings, followed by Tom Petty’s passing. How could things go so horribly wrong? Then the next Monday, the 9th of October, 2017, California lit on fire.

I grew up in Mendocino county, and went to middle and high school in Ukiah, the county seat. Most of my friends lived in Redwood Valley and I would spend summers as a working student in Sebastopol, in Sonoma county. As these fires tore through the communities in Sonoma and Mendocino counties, every single person I grew up with was impacted or had a family member who was impacted. My cousin in Sonoma is still not home, and my uncles in Santa Rosa had their things packed and were on standby to evacuate. My dear friend Teresa, spent nights at the stable with her horse, truck and trailer ready to run in an instant. My brother, although he is 6-8 miles as-the-crow-flies from the western edge of the Redwood Complex fire, was ready to leave with his dogs if necessary.

There is so much devastation, loss of life, and apocalyptic horror as a result of these fires, but the fires could not burn down the strong communities. Which brings me to the point of this post: Are you ready with your papers, loved ones, pets, and livestock, should the worst happen?

I started thinking “What would I do if there was a fire in my neighborhood?” Or a rain event that triggered landslide (I’m on a dry hillside, so not much risk of flood). Or a devastating earthquake. Or? The answer was “I have no idea.”

There are several other folks in my immediate neighborhood that have horses and other livestock. Nearly everyone has pets, and you can fit dogs and cats into your car. So I wasn’t as worried about the small animals for this line of thinking. But for those who have livestock, what do we do? Jean and I have a two horse trailer, and two horses. But where do we go? What about our neighbors?